Today we switched over to the new cloud credit subscription and purchased 1,000 credits per month. However render jobs that were previously around 3 credits on the legacy cloud credit system, are now 300+ credits.
Likely some teething problems as they only launched yesterday I believe, but I wondered if anyone else has come across this?
Thanks,
Hey! The new credits are a lot cheaper compared to the legacy Chaos Cloud Rendering credits.
Also the new credits can be used for both rendering jobs and our AI services.
In the near future we will launch new services that will be utilizing the new Chaos Credits and provide our users with more flexibility.
The issue is that the monthly subscriptions do not give you enough credits. Take a 100 frame animation, which on the new credit system costs 100 credits per frame. That’s 10,000 credits for one job. No subscription tier offers that amount in one hit. I wouldn’t want to be locked in an annual contract paying for 10,000 credits a month either, as its a job by job basis.
Chaos need to bring back credit packs asap, subscription model does not work.
We hear that feedback more and more, we are introducing larger packages soon. They will be available on the website.
In the meantime, we added a button to contact sales for larger packages or you can get a few credit packages at once.
Hope that helps for now. When you have more feedback, please share it freely!
Thank you for the update — larger packages will definitely help.
As a reference, I previously purchased 1,000 legacy Cloud Rendering Credits for US$900 (approximately $1 per credit). With the new system at around $0.30 per credit, the unit price is clearly lower.
However, based on reports in this thread, it seems the credit consumption per job has increased significantly — potentially by around 100x. If that is the case, the actual cost per render could be considerably higher than before, regardless of the lower unit price.
For example, as james_cutler pointed out in post 1, a job that previously cost around 3 credits now costs 300+ credits. Based on my own purchase history, the old system was approximately $1 per credit and the new system is around $0.30 per credit. If the consumption is truly 100x higher, the actual cost per render would be roughly 30x more expensive than before.
According to your own reply in post 2, the new credits are “a lot cheaper” compared to the legacy Chaos Cloud Rendering credits. If that is the case, a 30x increase in actual rendering cost would seem like a clear error that needs to be investigated.
If this turns out to be an error, would affected users such as james_cutler be eligible for a credit refund or compensation?
I also reached out to Chaos support separately, and received the following response from Nikolay Simeonov (Senior Manager, Account & Licensing Support):
“We are currently preparing benchmark renders using our existing sample scenes and animation projects. These examples will help demonstrate how the new credits translate into real-world rendering workloads and allow customers to compare usage more accurately. We will share additional comparison examples and guidance soon.”
It may be useful for others in this thread to know that as well.
Finally, and most importantly: is the approximately 30x increase in actual rendering cost an error, or is this the intended pricing under the new system? A direct answer to this question would be greatly appreciated.
I’m in the exact same boat and honestly, the way Chaos handled this is a joke.
First, we got absolutely zero warning. The change just dropped out of the blue, giving us no time to adjust budgets or plan ongoing projects.
Second, there’s zero transparency on what these new Chaos Credits are actually worth. Without a clear conversion rate, it’s impossible to compare prices or estimate render costs. It feels like they are intentionally keeping us in the dark.
To top it off, I opened a ticket with Chaos support a week ago asking about all of this. Seven days later and still no straight answer. If their own support team doesn’t even know how this new system translates, how are we supposed to figure it out?
@kristiyan_petrov, I would like to apologize for the cost comparison figures I posted earlier (shingohiga, post 5).
Based on james_cutler’s report that a job costing 3 legacy credits now costs 300 new credits, I stated that the new system costs approximately 30x more than the legacy system. However, I have since realized that the credit price I used in that calculation was incorrect.
After recalculating, the figure appears to be closer to approximately 3x. Though I cannot guarantee this is fully accurate either.
The core question remains: how does the actual rendering cost per job compare between the legacy and new credit systems? I look forward to the benchmark comparison that Chaos support mentioned is currently being prepared, as that will provide the reliable data needed for an accurate comparison.
I would also like to note that a Chaos staff member has stated that the new credits are cheaper than the legacy system. If the approximately 3x cost increase is not far from the truth, could you kindly help clarify how this aligns with that statement?
I ran some test renders comparing the old credit system to the new one. The numbers are obviously higher now, mainly because the new system uses different scaling.
On the same scenes, I was seeing roughly 30–40× higher numbers compared to the old system.
The issue James ran into was that you couldn’t easily buy that amount as a one-off — it was either too few credits or way too many, or you had to rely on monthly allocations.
Chaos have since updated things so there are more pack sizes available. That should make it a lot easier to find something that fits your project properly, and the overall cost is pretty similar to what it was before.
Since my last post we have been in contact with Chaos directly and our reseller. We were able to purchase much larger packs that would cover the jobs in hand, so that was good. Just unexpected complications right in the middle of a deadline 
That said, we have been running loads of tests with scenes on that were rendered on the old credit system, then on the new system, and the results do vary in cost. Some came out cheaper, but some came out quite a bit more expensive than before.
It is what it is, we have just adapted our workflow slightly to accommodate the larger costs in some cases.
Please go back to the previous method, the current one consumes many more credits and costs much more, it’s a real inconvenience.
I also ran my own comparison test, so I’d like to share the results.
5-Scene Cost Comparison: Legacy vs New System. For fairness, comparing similarly priced packs.
(Legacy: 1,000 credits, price $900 vs New: Annual Pool 60,000 credits, price $1,050)
| Scene | Legacy credits used | New credits used | Legacy cost ($0.90/credit) | New cost ($0.0175/credit) | Cost increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.765 | 160 | $1.59 | $2.80 | 1.76x |
| 2 | 1.278 | 87 | $1.15 | $1.52 | 1.32x |
| 3 | 1.590 | 104 | $1.43 | $1.82 | 1.27x |
| 4 | 1.220 | 99 | $1.10 | $1.73 | 1.57x |
| 5 | 1.251 | 92 | $1.13 | $1.61 | 1.43x |
| Total | 7.104 | 542 | $6.39 | $9.49 | 1.48x |
On average, the new credits cost about 1.48x more than the legacy credits.
From my experience and years of using the Cloud I have found that before with $100 I could produce even 50 images now with $100 I produce 20
Im on the new credit system now and the burn rate is nothing like the legacy credits. The same budget that used to comfortably cover a full interior project now disappears in a fraction of the jobs. I ran dry mid-project, on the final evening before a deadline, and had to top up twice just to finish submitting renders I’d already planned for
Telling us the new credits are “cheaper per credit” misses the point. What I actually see is that the same work now costs me far more, and I can no longer predict what a project will cost before I start it. The legacy system was predictable and reasonably priced. This is neither.